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The Dead Hand Journal

Journal

Esteemed military strategist and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced this evening that the Iraq campaign in the War on Terror "is a failure," adding that President Bush’s troop surge "has not produced the desired effect."

"The purpose of the surge was to create a secure time for the government of Iraq to make the political change to bring reconciliation to Iraq," Pelosi told anchor Wolf Blitzer on CNN's Late Edition. "They have not done that."

Well, that's a relief. The troops are off the hook; Pelosi made it plain a minute or so later that it was actually President Bush who had failed to do their job.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military today released exerpts from captured letters, including one written by Abu-Tariq, emir of al-Qaeda's al-Layin and al-Mashahdah sectors in Anbar province, a focal point of the recent troop surge.

Of the loss of Anbar province, Abu-Tariq wrote: "This created weakness and psychological defeat. This also created panic, fear and the unwillingness to fight. The morale of the fighters went down.... There was a total collapse in the security structure of the organisation."

The emir complained that the supply of foreign fighters had dwindled and that they found it increasingly hard to operate inside Iraq because they could not blend in. Foreign suicide bombers, determined to kill "not less than 20 or 30 infidels," grew disillusioned because they were kept hanging about and only given small operations. Some gave up and went home.

One can only guess that communication difficulties must have prevented Abu-Tariq from receiving Nancy Pelosi's memo regarding his success in containing the U.S. troop surge. Just imagine the frustration in the leadership caves along the Pakistani border as Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants come to grips with the realities of managing high-echelon intelligence assets in far-away Washington!

Of course, if the Democrats take the White House in November, OBL and his cronies will really be in for a shock. It should take about five minutes for the Clibama administration to wrest open the jaws of defeat, declare victory in Iraq, and pull chocks for home.

That's a pretty categorical statement, about on a par with "poverty isn't defeated so long as one child goes hungry." As a hands-in-the-air declaration of starry-eyed idealism, I guess it works... but personally I prefer facts.

Here's a fact: al-Qaeda is a predominantly Sunni organization. The overwhelming majority of their co-conspirators in Iraq are Sunni. Wouldn't take a whole lot of PC pencil-whipping to turn an anti-terrorist vigilante group into a "Shia death squad," would it?

But I don't know that, because I haven't seen the numbers. Maybe they don't often get broken out that way because there REALLY ARE bands of Shia roaming the countryside, randomly murdering Sunnis. In that case, feel free to demonstrate our failure by citing a trend in such attacks that is failing to decline.

Good luck with that. Don't forget to support that pesky premise.

Of course, my money is on the notion that the vast majority of "Shia death squads" are comprised of brave Iraqi citizens doing their part to exterminate the jihadist vermin that have invaded their country. And you won't see the numbers broken out that way because the resulting conclusions run counter to the liberal media's narrative regarding the war.

You seem interested, though, Dave. Why don't you go get the facts and tell us precisely how they support your thesis, whatever it is?